site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 29, 2024

This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.

Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.

We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:

  • Shaming.

  • Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.

  • Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.

  • Recruiting for a cause.

  • Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.

In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:

  • Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.

  • Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.

  • Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.

  • Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.

On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.

6
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

I think the first answer is "zoning reform". If it was as trivially easy to spam new housing as YIMBYs would like it to be, a would-be monopolist would be chasing an ever-moving target.

I think the second answer is that even in the current environment, there is a lot of land. It would take absolutely insane levels of invested capital to build a portfolio that has anything approaching market power. Very localized market power would hopefully be mitigated by (1), as you can just go down the street some number of miles and build more, but the option to move to the next city is a pretty decent escape from monopoly. We've already seen plenty of less-than-super-money-loaded (i.e., not tech) companies flee from the high costs in California locations (just due to NIMBY, not even self-assessed-tax-derived monopoly). It definitely requires them to take a one-time hit, but these are the forces that move the system toward equilibrium.

I think the third answer is that the homeowner should, in theory, assess their property at a value that would actually sufficiently compensate them for the move. That is, it should include their moving costs, the cost of an alternate home in an alternate location, and whatever inconveniences come with that alternative. This is, of course, in theory, and it would be quite difficult to assess in practice. If done appropriately, it would be paired with significant reduction in tax rates, as valuations would be significantly higher than current purchase prices. Of course, Weyl's ilk aren't actually motivated by assessing things properly, so they'll immediately defect and jack rates up to be punitive toward anyone with wealth/assets. This is the real reason why such a scheme is not feasible; there is no likely political commitment to using this tool in a way that would actually be beneficial to a market economy rather than highly detrimental. I'd be much much much more concerned about this than investment company monopoly.